One of the first questions apartment hunters ask me is the breakdown of utility billing. What do tenants pay and what does the building pay? I’m never able to gauge ahead of time what their reaction will be when I state the circumstances. The best advice I’ve been able to gain from researching the most common practices, is that building owners should pay “some” of the utilities as opposed to all...

Dear Apartment Industry Colleagues,The end is nigh!No, it’s not the opening to the latest apocalyptic zombie thriller (though I do enjoy those), I’m referring to the end of the first session of the 113th Congress. For the first time in many years, Congress will go and stay gone from Washington, D.C., for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. “Huzzah!” says every lobbyist, Hill staffer and...

Let's face it; no matter how you look at it, managing packages is one of the necessary evils of apartment management. So if there's anything we can do to simplify the process and improve the customer experience, then it's our job to look at all options.
Before Camden implemented our current system for managing packages, we manually logged all packages (time permitting of course) on a paper log...

Last week I received a text on my flip phone while I was in an NAA staff meeting.
For those of you smartphone folks who can’t reach far back enough in your memory to recall the sound, it’s a series of three loud beeps.
“Lauren, I think your pager went off,” said one cruel co-worker who shall not be named (rhymes with Jeremy Figoten).
Unless I have a computer nearby, it’s technologically...